


Love Languages

by Meeralith



Series: Commissions and Requests [1]
Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, post Mordrem Crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24894406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meeralith/pseuds/Meeralith
Summary: About fear and comfort, love and trust.
Relationships: Charr/Charr, OC/OC
Series: Commissions and Requests [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1801351
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Love Languages

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueenofWitchBlood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenofWitchBlood/gifts).



The jungle is never truly quiet, especially not at night. When the patrols return to base and most denizens retreat to their own dwelling, the lack of commotion reveals Maguuma's own sound. Cricket chirps, the humming of alien insects, the trees in the wind, cracking of underbrush under small animal feet.  
Caesarath usually enjoys these hours between sundown and bedtime, hearing the heartbeat of the jungle.

She's at camp, stoking her fire to keep the stew warm, while glancing off into the distance, beyond the fortifications, a tunnel vision on a specific spot between the vines and branches. Her tail thrashes from side to side in anticipation and idle worry.   
It's always like this, in the evenings. Lauralae gets sent out way further than her, often alone or in smaller units. While her work is not necessarily more dangerous than Caesarath's own, more direct confrontations with mordrem stragglers, it takes her longer to return home at the end of the workday.  
Rationally, Caesarath knows that she's just fine, but that never helps to loosen the tight knot of fear in her chest.  
Not many expect a hardened warrior like her to have such a soft spot. To know this gnawing anxiety. But oh, Caesarath knows it too well. Death was all around during the war against Mordremoth, death and loss. Every single time she saw a soldier collapsed over their dead companion, shoulders trembling with sobs, she felt that sting of terror. Even now, with the Dragon gone and the war over, the Jungle isn't safe. Stragglers are abound and directionless Mordrem are often just as dangerous as those serving an Elder Dragon. They're afraid and confused, which leads them to become quite unhinged. Caesarath has had brushes with them often enough to know this, and the dull pain in her side reminds her of that. A cracked rib, hastily treated with Pact healing magic, but the pain always takes longer to ebb away.  
Her beloved, the most important person in her life, is very much in the line of fire and that fact is painfully clear to Caesarath at every waking moment.  
Usually, she can keep her fear under control, but at times like this, when she waits idly for Lauralae to return, with little else to occupy her mind, it's difficult to keep in check.

Her snout twitches, seeking for the scent of oiled leathers and gunpowder that heralds Lauralae's arrival long before any noise or visual does. With a jolt of excitement and a skip of her heartbeat, she picks it up, but forces herself to remain calm and stoic, as usual.  
Slowly and deliberately, she stirs her stew as her beloved approaches from the distance, squeezing out of that gap in the vines she's been focused on and passes the fortifications in a light jog.

Caesarath gives her a cursory glance, then nods approvingly. No visible injuries, blood that doesn't seem to be her own.  
“Honey, I'm home!” Lauralae greets, voice light and chipper, and warmth fills Caesarath's heart.  
“About time.” she huffs, contrasting her joy. “I've had dinner ready for almost an hour.”  
She taps the spot on the ground beside her and offers Lauralae a wooden bowl.  
“Mhm, I smell it.” the thief comments and sits, discarding her hood and heavy overclothes in the motion. “What're we having tonight?”  
“Boar.” Caesarath answers, while she fills Lauralae's bowl. “The Nuhoch insisted I add some of their strange... funghi. So, no guaranteesin regards of taste.”

Lauralae furrows her brows and brings the bowl closer to her face for examination.  
“Hm.” she hums. “I've eaten weirder stuff, I suppose. No offense to your cooking, love.”  
“Excuse me?!” Caesarath exclaims in fake-shock and Lauralae boxes her lightly on the shoulder.  
“You're creative. That's a good thing. I just so happen to be your favorite test subject.” Her smile bares glinting white fangs and jest shimmers in her eyes.  
“You've got a strong stomach.” Caesarath quips back. “Eat up.”  
“Yes, mom.” Lauralae says and rolls her eyes, before obediently raising the bowl to her mouth.

Caesarath watches her empty the whole serving in less than a minute. Smirking she nods to the still reasonably full kettle on the fire.  
“Experiment succeeded?” she asks, raising the ladle and Lauralae immediately holds out her bowl for seconds.  
“Thoroughly.” she praises. “Those mushrooms add a little zing. I like it.”  
“I hoped you would.” Caesarath says and begins eating her own serving, earning a snort-laugh from her lover.  
“Hey, look at that! Did you really wait until I greenlight the stew?” she accuses. “I really am your test subject, aren't I?”  
“Absolutely.” Caesarath lies. In truth, she tends to wait until Lauralae's had her second serving, to make sure she doesn't go hungry. 

Love languages are odd, she muses to herself, as Lauralae leans on her with her second serving. The quips and affectionate insults are one way to show trust. Eating your partner's cooking is another, especially when you're raised Ash Legion.

She finishes her own dinner while Lauralae is on her third, then fourth bowl of stew and eventually curls up the recover from her food coma.  
“Glad you liked it.” Caesarath mutters, her front paw gently massaging between Lauralae's ears as she slowly dozes off.

Lauralae is incredibly soft, even under those calloused warrior hands, but never fragile. The worry will always be present, but Caesarath trusts her. She trusts her, and Lauralae trusts her. Another love language. In a society that allows promotion through assassination, stationed in a place where the flora itself wants to rip you apart, letting down your guard enough to sleep at someone's side is a big deal. Especially for a person like Lauralae, who is used to sleep with one eye open for weeks on end, always ready to jump to her feet and fight.

The smaller Charr is curled up beside her, head resting in her lap, completely relaxed, breath slow and steady. Fully asleep, entirely comfortable, purring softly in her sleep.

–

Caesarath wakes with an aching back, as she usually does. She must've fallen asleep sitting up. Silently cursing to herself, she gets up and stretches. Back, arms, legs, neck. Each joint cracks when she loosens the tension.  
It aches harder, but the tension releases quickly, despite the disgusting noise.  
“Yikes!” Lauralae comments from her bedroll and Caesarath sticks out her tongue at her.  
“You could've woken me, you know.” she complains.  
“Nah. You slept like an angel.” Lauralae says. “An angel that swallowed a chainsaw.”  
“I sat hunched over, that causes the snoring.” Caesarath defends herself, cracking her stiff neck again.  
“You also snore sprawled out on your back.” Lauralae reminds her.  
“Touché.”

Caesarath reaches into her pack to bring out her heavy platemail. It's strange how getting beaten to a pulp by Mordrem three times her size isn't as bad on her body as a night of sleeping in an awkward position. It's the domestic terrors that get her, never the war itself.

She feels light touch on her back, as Lauralae helps her into her armor, closing clasps in hard-to-reach-places for her, while Caesarath puts on her gauntlets.  
When she is done, she turns around.  
Lauralae already has her hood up, her icy blue eyes glinting at her from the shadow underneath.  
“You look like a five star badass.” she comments.  
“I am a five star badass.” Caesarath confirms and leans forward, briefly touching Lauralae's nose with her own. “Be safe, okay?”  
“Always.” Lauralae assures her. “If I bite it during the day,...” she grins sheepishly. “Well, then I don't get to come home to you in the evening, now, do I? Can't miss out on that.”

Despite the grim subject, Caesarath smiles one of her rarer smiles, with no sarcasm or humor, just genuine, warm affection.  
Lauralae is smaller than her, scrawnier, not clad in metal and lacking massive swords. She looks fragile, but Caesarath knows her deadly precision, her feline grace that lets her slip away from danger, slink into the shadow whenever she wishes, has seen the darkness embrace her like an old friend. She knows she will be safe. She knows she'll return.  
By y the Khan-Ur's Claw, Caesarath will fight tooth and nail to make sure she has a place to return to when she does.

“I'll be waiting for you.” she promises, her voice heavy with sincerity. “As I always do.”  
“As you always do.” Lauralae parrots her, her tone carrying the same love as Caesarath's and she turns to leave, lets the jungle swallow her again.  
Caesarath watches her until she can no longer see her, and eventually turns to join her own troop for patrol.  
Knowing that there will be someone to share stew with when the day is done.


End file.
